Drip & Burr

First, thanks for being a loyal DoubleShot customer. Nice to hear you’re enjoying the coffees. You have a broad taste spectrum, enjoying both Ethiopian and Sumatran coffee. That’s unusual and refreshing to read. 

Sounds like you have your brewing ritual all sewn up, for the most part. Burr grinder, auto-drip, filtered water, descaling regularly.

Not sure what type of drip brewer you’re using, but they range from really good to really bad. Ratio 8 to Mr Coffee. I have long dreamt of building my own brewer, and at one point I even purchased the brain and sensors needed to do it. Lately I’m back on the hunt for the perfect brewer, and thinking hard about building one again. So stay tuned. 

One thing I ran into recently was a friend notifying me that the Moccamaster filters had changed all of a sudden. You probably don’t think much about coffee filters, but they can make a big difference. I emailed Technivorm, and they assured me they did extensive testing on the new filters and they have the same flow rate. Problem is, my friend gave me some of the old filters and some of the new filters, and I ordered some filters from another brand called CAFEC. I did a flow rate test with those, plus the standard grocery store Melitta filter. All of the filters performed pretty close to the same, EXCEPT the new Moccamaster filter, which flowed substantially slower. Pre-wetting the filters increased their flow rate a little across the board. But who wants to pre-wet a drip filter? 

Point is, filter paper can make a difference, believe it or not. Once you dial in the specific filter you use, stick with it. If it changes, you either need to change with it or change filter brands. 

Only other thing you might try is experimenting with various brewing methods for fun to see how the coffee can taste different in a French press or moka pot or V60 pourover or aeropress or whatever. And depending on what grinder you’re using, you can almost always buy a nicer one!